


선배님 (Work in Progress)

by loosenoodlepoodledoodle



Category: ITZY (Band), Sunmi (Korea Musician)
Genre: F/F, LGBTQ Themes, i gotta finish this first before i come up with more tags
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-02
Updated: 2021-02-20
Packaged: 2021-03-07 00:55:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 9,056
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26248285
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/loosenoodlepoodledoodle/pseuds/loosenoodlepoodledoodle
Summary: It was Sunmi's idea to go on a road trip across America. But neither Ryujin, nor Lia, nor Yeji realized passing over the Rockies is impossible in the winter.Now they're trapped together, in an abandoned resort, with only their feelings for each other for company...
Relationships: Choi Jisu | Lia/Hwang Yeji, Choi Jisu | Lia/Shin Ryujin, Hwang Yeji/Shin Ryujin
Comments: 2
Kudos: 26





	1. Chapter 1

_Whiteout._ Not entirely true; we can still see the edge of the road just outside our windows, and there are some vague shapes made by the mountains and the sun. But really, taking a road trip through the Rockies this time of year was a terrible mistake.

It was Sunmi’s idea, and the three of us accepted without reservation. Normally when we’re in America, we stay in the cities. We’d never really understood the sheer scale of these pillars of the Earth; most mountains in Korea have trees growing all the way to the top. But driving between, and under, these massive things? I feel like we’re heading to Moria.

“Keep your eyes peeled for any road signs,” says Sunmi. She’s really tense, and I’m glad I’m not the one charged with keeping us from plunging over the sides. “We need to pull over, whatever the next stop is.”

I look at Yeji, sitting to my left. She’s as worried as any of us, her eyes peeled for any sign of civilization out her window. I try to catch Lia, riding shotgun, in the rearview mirror, but she’s spotted our salvation.

“There’s a sign,” she says, _“Evergreen Pines Resort and Spa.”_

Soon I see it, too. There’s an arrow pointing off to the left, and Sunmi slowly takes us up a long, winding driveway. We’re near the top when we’re stopped by a gate with a padlock. A blank shadow ahead of us signifies the mysterious hotel. We assess our situation.

“Do you think anybody’s home?” asks Yeji.

“No, it’s gotta be closed,” says Lia. “Just like this road should’ve been.”

“I don’t want to leave the car parked on this slope,” says Sunmi. We look at each other.

“Then, we’ve got to climb over the fence and find a key,” I say.

Sunmi turns to look at me over her shoulder. She smiles, which is pretty but also slightly creepy, what it does to her eyes.

“Are you volunteering?”

_Oh._ “I guess I am.” I unbuckle my seatbelt, and am about to open the car door when Yeji speaks up.

“Is it really safe for her to go all by herself?”

“Probably not,” says Sunmi, but Yeji is reluctant to step out into the blizzard. Instead Lia answers the call.

“I’ll go. I need to move around, anyway.”

We both immediately regret our decision in the cold. We have to get up on the hood of the rental car in order to climb over the gate. The snowdrift on the other side doesn’t do much to cushion our landing.

“I think we go that way.” I point it out to her, and she grunts affirmatively through the wind.

The vague gray shape of the hotel resolves itself as we approach. It’s three stories tall, then I realize it has a fourth composed of loft suites tucked into the high angles of the roof. Windows break up the smooth plane it would otherwise form, like sharp jagged teeth in the open, slack jaw of a dead dragon. I can’t tell if we’re still walking on the driveway, a parking lot, or a fucking flowerbed.

“We’re almost there, Ryujin,” says Lia. The hotel has a long, straight porch with a veranda. It only half-protects us, but that’s so much better than being in the open.

The front door is locked by a padlocked chain, too.

“We’ll have to break a window,” shouts Lia.

“What if we set off an alarm?”

“Good, the cops’ll rescue us.” If they can even make it out here.

We work out how to shimmy open a window without smashing it. There are planters up and down the porch, and one of them has a flat piece of metal in the dirt. Lia is able to pry open the shutters, then stick it in the track between the window and the sill. Using both of our strength, we pop it off the track, breaking the interior latch in the process. Now the window can’t slide up and down easily, and it won’t seal properly until it’s repaired, but we’ve got enough of a gap to slip in under.

Inside it’s dark. Like, midnight dark. All the windows in the entire building must be shuttered, and they’re heavily curtained, too. It takes a confusing second for us to untangle ourselves from this set. When we do, we turn on our phone lights and look around. We don’t bother checking for a signal; we’ve been far from a working cell tower for a while.

“I guess this is the lobby,” says Lia. Sofas, chairs, and coffee tables, all under white sheets, abound. There is a staircase directly across from the front doors, whose windows are the only ones any light is pouring through. We pull their curtains apart to increase the illumination (and maybe calm us down), but it hardly betters anything. I can’t help but feel something is odd. This place is uncanny, and it’s almost like we’re graverobbers or something, but I can’t put my finger on what is setting me off about it.

Next to the stairs is the front desk, and there’s no barrier to keep us from searching for keys. But there aren’t any.

“They must use electronic locks…”

“Then we’re in the wrong area,” says Lia, and she takes off to go into the office next door. I linger out here, wondering what’s so out of place, and it’s when I stand right in front of the stairs that I finally feel it.

The heat’s on down in the basement.

“Lia,” I whisper shrilly, “I don’t think we’re alone!”

She steps out with a key chain in hand. “Well, if we’re not, they can invite us all for dinner. C’mon.”

We have to shimmy back out the way we came, because of the padlock. Lia gets it off with only a few tries, and we leave the front door open a crack. Heading back towards the car, I am struck by how everything in that direction looks like it’s in a huge white cloud.

The sunlight catches the snowdrifts in just the right way, making them sparkle, too. So it’s not all bad to see.

***

Sunmi parks the car on what is probably still asphalt, and we unload our stuff. Our food is mostly snacks and picnic sandwich-type fare, and it won’t last long. Neither will our water bottles.

We get inside, and Sunmi decides we should split up and look around. She takes Lia with her back into the office, so I’m stuck with Yeji. The lobby is quite large, but there’s seemingly nothing in it but furniture and shadows, so I convince her to solve the puzzle of the heat with me.

“It’s warmer downstairs,” I tell her, pointing down to what must be the basement.

“That makes sense, it’s where they’d put the furnace.”

We descend, side by side, and down at the bottom there’s a sort of janitor’s office. Through an archway beyond, we find some utility rooms with glowing light switches. We flip them, and midnight becomes day.

“Wow,” says Yeji, what do you think this is?”

I look at the machine; it’s not what I would think a furnace or boiler should be. But it’s unmistakable: it radiates heat.

“I think…I think it must be geothermal.” I notice pipes leading straight into the ground, then find some sort of guide document posted to the wall.

“It says here, something about solar panels,” says Yeji. She’s looking at an electrical box. I open it and flip some switches, and the lights in here with us flicker slightly.

“Let’s head back up, see if we’ve changed anything,” I say. Yeji nods her agreement and holds my hand.

We find some lights to try, and sure enough, they work. Sunmi and Lia are pleasantly surprised when we show them in the office. But it doesn’t last long.

“You probably triggered a fault-state, like a brownout,” says Lia. “Maybe when it stops snowing, more light can reach the panels.”

Yeji and I go back and turn the lights off downstairs, and reactivate the breakers. Then we return to find Sunmi and Lia sitting in chairs near the windows. There’s a radiator nearby, and when we open its valve, heat pours out, healing us.

It also makes a godawful clanking sound.

“I don’t know how we’re going to sleep with that racket,” said Sunmi.

I shrug. “It’s not like we have any choice, do we?”

“What did you find?” asks Yeji.

“Some floor plans, among other things. This joint is closed until spring. The phone lines are out, and we didn’t find a radio. So we may be stuck here for a while.”

I scrunch my shoulders uncomfortably, and Yeji squeezes my hand. Lia frowns, but Sunmi doesn’t seem that bothered, so maybe we’re worrying too much. And isn’t this what we set out for? An adventure?

“What should we do next? Like, what’s the plan?” I ask Sunmi. She’s our 선배, after all. We should really defer to her.

“Okay, we’re gonna pick two rooms near the stairs, get them up and running, and then see what kind of food is leftover.”

It’s not as much work as it sounds. The heating and water pipes are labeled clearly, and by choosing specific breakers, there’s less of a vampiric drain on our limited electricity. We can’t run the televisions and mini-fridges, but we don’t need to. Sunmi points out that if we want anything chilled, we can just leave it out on the porch.

I’m really glad she’s with us.

There’s a propane tank somewhere on the property. Until we see it ourselves, there’s no way to be sure how much gas is left, but we need it for cooking, and heating up water. The geothermal system just isn’t fast enough for a shower, or four.

Because we’re so deep in the mountains, the sun sets early. The lobby windows are already darkening when we settle in for the night. We pick two rooms with a connecting doorway, at the top of the first flight of steps. That way, we don’t have to go out in the freezing hallway if we need to speak to each other. Though it hardly matters anyway.

Lia and I are grabbing bedsheets and the like from the nearest linen closet when the hall lights start to fail. We step out with our phone lights, and our prizes, when we’re both shook by how dark everything is. Pitch black, with the long hallway disappearing into the void of space in either direction. I remember from the diagram she and Sunmi found, there’s an entire east and west wing in this hotel, and right now we can’t even see them down the way. And our bedroom windows are shuttered from the outside, so we won’t be able to tell if it’s daylight out without going downstairs.

“This is so fucking creepy,” says Lia, and as I nod my agreement, the wind howls across the rooftops above us, and there’s a groan from the pipes in the floor and walls, and then the lights flicker and we jump at the sound of a backup generator coming on from somewhere else on the property.

“Why didn’t that engage before?” asks Lia.

“Um, wrong breaker combination, maybe?”

Without another word, we bring back our prizes to our rooms, though given how chilly they still are, it’s no surprise that we decide to share beds this first night. Somehow, Yeji ends up with Sunmi, and she looks at us apologetically as Sunmi snuggles close.

I can feel Lia radiating jealousy next to me, as we finish our supper of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. We’ll check for food downstairs in the morning, the light outside just faded so quickly. And being out of the car and off that sadistic road has caused our adrenaline to crash. We set our plates aside, change as quick as we can into pajamas, then crawl into the other bed and turn off the light. It’s still so cold, we are immediately in each other’s arms.

I’m still lying there awake when I hear that lonely generator cut off. Now only the wind and the haunting moans of the pipes remain to accompany my companions’ pleasant breathing.


	2. Chapter 2

I have a dream, but I don’t remember it when I wake up. It leaves me with a disconcerting feeling, one that is compounded when I think I am alone in the dark. My hand lays still on an empty spot on the bed. I stretch my arm out, fingers reaching for Lia, but there’s nothing. Just an empty space.

There’s light when the bathroom door opens. I was facing the wrong way; Lia somehow wound up on the other side of the bed. Sunmi is backlit, and she stops when she sees me twisting about like this.

I can’t see her face.

The rest of us get up, and do our morning routine, though the fact that we’re living in a man-made cave renders it surreal. We get put together, and brave the freezing halls to reach the kitchen. The pickings are slim. The only things we find are the sorts of foods that don’t expire quickly. Ready-to-bake pancake mix, the kind you don’t need to add eggs to, is our breakfast. But there’s no butter, and a single bottle of syrup.

We’ll have to make it last.

When we’re done eating, we wash our dishes and clean up our cooking mess, then make a list on some office stationery of our total food inventory.

“We can’t stay here for very long,” says Lia.

“Yeah,” says Yeji, “not even for a week.”

“We may not have a choice,” says Sunmi. “If we’re snowed in, then the car’ll get stuck. We’ll be worse off than if we had stayed. And walking would be even worse than driving.”

“But,” I interject, and my voice is shaking a little as I say it, “if we’re trapped here, we’ll starve if there’s no rescue…”

I look at my companions. We all know how serious this is, but from their eyes I’m not sure if they’ve really accepted it. I don’t quite think they’re in denial, but you have to take it into your being, the possibility of your own death, before you can truly understand it.

“Maybe we can find more food,” suggests Lia.

We come up with a kind of plan. We’ll search the whole hotel thoroughly for any more supplies, and we’ll start thinking about survival skills. We’ve all been on television shows with a survival theme, so maybe we can find something edible in the wilderness. But first, we have to get a better handle on how this hotel functions. That’ll be our job, me and Lia.

The morning passes, and we are successful, the two of us, at least. We do take a trip outside with brooms and shovels, clearing off the solar panels out back, garnering more juice for the lights. We check the propane tank and find it nearly half-full. When that’s finished, we look at a utility floor plan in the basement and learn the lay of the land. Finally, we pace the hallways of the entire building, mainly because we don’t know what else to do, and while we find a couple of vending machines with bags of stale pretzels still inside it’s what’s at the top of the stairs that gives us hope.

The fourth floor landing opens into a small library. There are lots of different books to be found there, and while I’m glad it means we’ll have something to do to keep our minds off starving to death Lia notices several books on the local flora and fauna.

“Hey, I think we can find food sources in here,” she says, and we crack some open and she’s right. Pine, rose hips, wild onions, barberry and more. There’s a map of the grounds on the wall, and we can see woods nearby, and a lake and marsh across and down from the main road. Nobody lives in this valley, and while that makes it much harder to be rescued, it also means no one else is around to harvest all this food.

“Let’s show the others,” I say, and with a glimmer of hope in our hearts we head back downstairs.

***

“This isn’t going to work,” says Sunmi.

I frown; she can’t know that until we try. Besides, what other choice do we have?

“Have you found any way to call for help? Or anyone nearby that we can hike to?” asks Lia. Sunmi glowers at her, and it’s up to Yeji to respond.

“No, we haven’t. And there’s no way to dig our way out. Spring will come long before we’d clear the road with shovels.”

“That settles it then,” I say. Sunmi glares at me, but I don’t understand why.

We have some daylight left, and the weather is holding. We all bundle up and trudge out back to the nearest trees. Gathering pine won’t be a problem, it’s the berries and onions that will prove more difficult. We make some progress, just enough to prove the concept, and we head back in as the sky turns orange and the wind picks up. We eat the last of our sandwiches and hang out in front of the lobby fireplace, reading or playing board games that Yeji found. It’s almost bedtime when I end up lounging on a leather sofa, Lia snuggled beside me under a quilt. Yeji puts her game away and looks over at Sunmi, who is sitting by herself in a high-backed chair, staring into the flames.

After a while, Yeji crawls under the quilt with us. When Sunmi hears her, she slowly turns her head towards us, a hard grimace on her face concealed in shadow. Her eyes glisten with a reflection of the firelight, which doesn’t make sense, because right now it’s behind her, over her shoulder. But then I remember there’s plenty of furniture to provide a secondary reflection. Maybe that’s it. Yes, surely.

The fire burns low, so we clean up our clutter and head upstairs to bed. As we change into our pajamas, the wind howls and rattles shutters throughout the hotel, and we meekly say our goodnights and climb under the covers.

I don’t think I hear Sunmi say a thing.

***

I remember my dream this time. I’m wandering a huge maze at night, all alone. I keep thinking I’m going to find someone, but every turn I make is wrong. I despair, until the day comes. But it’s so foggy that I’m no better off.

I wake up, and my nose is cold but my body is warm. I’m crammed between Lia and what turns out to be Yeji. The heat inside me is unbearable, and I want nothing more than to get off to the two of them beside me, but I mustn’t. Instead I sit up, the blanket falling away as I lean over to turn on the lamp. It’s freezing in here, and when the light is on I see the bedroom door is wide open and Sunmi is nowhere to be found.

“Guys,” I say, groggily, “guys, wake up.”

We get dressed and return to the kitchen, where it is immediately obvious Sunmi has already been here. The fry pan sits unwashed in the sink, along with a plate, mixing bowl, and utensils, and the bottle of syrup is now empty in the trash can.

“I’m gonna kick her ass,” says Lia.

“That’s not fair,” says Yeji.

“Yeah,” I agree, “we don’t know what happened…”

Lia rolls her eyes. “I know I’m not the only one who’s noticed it, but Sunmi’s been wigging out lately. If nothing’s wrong, then how come she’s gone without telling us? That’s sus as hell!”

She’s right, though Yeji and I don’t want to admit it. I step out of the kitchen and rush to the front door. I look through the window, and our rental car is where we left it two nights ago.

“Sunmi must still be here,” I tell them.

“Unless she was dumb enough to go walking around outside by herself,” says Lia.

We mull what to do over a breakfast of canned fruit and vegetables. I myself am surprised at how good the green beans are after they’ve been heated up. But the lack of protein in our new diet is making my stomach growl.

“I was reading last night,” says Lia, “we might get fish from the lake. Those would be easy enough to catch and cook up.”

“But should we leave Sunmi alone up here?” asks Yeji, worried. “If we’re gone, and she comes back, and needs our help?”

“You’re right,” I say, “we don’t all need to go to the lake.”

In the end, Lia and I will make a preliminary reconnaissance across the road, while Yeji holds down the fort. She wants to try out the recipe for pine bark, since it’s the one plentiful food source we know of.

We bid her farewell and leave out the front door. We pass the car, and I wipe down some of the windows and peer inside. Not a soul to be found.

We have to push the front gate open against a snowdrift, but once we’re through it’s easier than I thought it would be. While in some places the drifts are high, in many others the wind has scoured the driveway almost clean. We get to the road, and Lia finds the marked path to the lake quite easily. We descend through an idyllic meadow to some more pine trees, then a short distance later we arrive at a shed on the lake shore.

“Everything we need should be in there,” says Lia, and before I can ask what that might be she breaks in through a window and has unlocked the door.

“God, Lia, isn’t there a key?”

“Probably, but we don’t have time to look for it. Come on.”

She pulls me inside, and I can only stand there uselessly as she finds what she is looking for. When she’s done, we head out to the water, which is exceptionally frozen solid.

“Here, look for a big rock we can throw to break the ice.”

I do what I’m told, and the first rock I toss makes a tiny crack before skidding away. I only just manage to find a better candidate when Lia tells me to help her. We heave-ho, and there is a satisfying crack and splash, and Lia is setting up her fishing gear.

“Careful Lia, you could fall in!”

Lia turns to me. “No, I won’t.”

I grab a low-hanging tree branch and ready myself, and when the ice starts to break, I grab her with my free arm and pull her back. Her feet are dunked, but she keeps ahold of the fishing gear.

I look Lia in the eyes. She wordlessly gives me her thanks, and I only reluctantly let her go.

With the new break in the ice, she can keep the fishing gear within reach of dry land, or as dry as can be had when there’s this much snow on the ground. We squat nearby, shivering, and nothing bites.

“What’d you use as bait?” I ask.

“I made some doughballs real quick.”

I look at her. “Do fish like doughballs?”

She shrugs. “Some of them do, apparently. And these ones can’t exactly beg and choose.”

We wait just a little longer, then Lia looks over at the shed.

“I’m getting pretty cold.”

We head inside, but it’s not really any warmer in there, we’ve no heat source besides each other. I ask Lia how her feet are doing.

“Gee, they’re chilly,” she says sardonically, but I’m a little worried so I have her take her shoes and socks off.

“Can you feel that?”

“No,” she says, shaking her head, “they’re totally numb.”

I wring out her socks the best I can, and shove them under my armpits to heat them up. After about a minute, I have her put them back on, and declare that we need to get back to the hotel.

“But what about the fish?”

“What about them? They’re not going anywhere. And if one bites, there’s no one around to steal it!”

The hike back up is far more brutal than either one of us had anticipated. By the time we reach the road we’re both shaking, and not only from the cold. The driveway is pure torture, and the weather is getting worse. I have to drag Lia and myself through the gate and into the parking lot. The last few meters are terrible, and I realize that we must be dehydrated. We forgot to bring water on our little field trip, and eating snow would have been suicide in these freezing conditions.

I get to the front door, Lia hanging on my shoulder, and when I fling it open the wave of heat that rushes out nearly puts us to sleep. We step in, I close the door, and I set Lia down in front of the fire, which Yeji has left roaring. I pull her shoes and socks off again, then strip her and myself down to our underwear. We need to heat up fast, and our coats and things, meant to retain our body heat and keep out the cold, will only slow us down.

I take hold of her feet, and press them against my chest, crossing my arms over them. She’s so cold she’s got me shivering, but I feel a sense of triumph when she wiggles one of her toes.

“How’s that feel?” I ask.

“Feels good,” she murmurs.

“I don’t think you’ve got any frostbite,” I say, which is kind of funny, considering I could’ve just _looked_ at her feet to check. Oh well. Now that the immediate danger has passed, I’m thirsty as hell, and not just for Lia. I let her go, get to my feet, and hurry to the kitchen. I bring back some water bottles, and we toast our survival and chug away. I grab the quilt off of the leather sofa, and cuddle underneath it with Lia. I say her name, and she turns towards me, and I…

I don’t do anything. She nods off to sleep, and I pass out a moment later.

Neither one of us can spare a thought as to whatever might be happening to poor Yeji right now.


	3. Chapter 3

I wake up to someone screaming.

I sit up, disoriented. Lia is already stirring next to me, and as the quilt falls away I shiver in the chilly air. Only the side of me facing the fireplace feels the heat.

I scramble to get dressed as Lia tries to answer back. It’s coming from somewhere faraway, some place upstairs, but I can’t place the direction any more than that.

I leave my shoes and Lia behind and climb the stairs to our bedroom. The lights are on but no one is home.

I hear another scream, farther away. Whoever it is, she’s moved.

I step out and there’s Lia. We both run to the top of the stairs, and are stunned to see that someone has tossed the little library. Books are everywhere, but no furniture or lamps have been destroyed.

“I think she’s this way,” I say to Lia, pointing down the hall towards the west wing.

“Are you sure? It sounded more like the other way to me…”

I look at her. “Should we split up? Or—”

“No, let’s stick together.” She’s right, who knows what the hell is going on here. Could be an intruder, could be a wild animal gnawing on Yeji’s leg, it could even be Sunmi yelling and sleepwalking for all we know.

We decide to head west, more or less arbitrarily. There are fewer guest room doors than on the lower floors, and I assume they must all be suites. We try a few doors, calling out for Yeji and Sunmi, but we find nothing. We reach the corner of the building and I have to stop to rub my feet. They’re cold, and I really regret not putting my shoes back on.

“Can you wait a sec? I’ve got to warm my feet,” I tell Lia, and she’s okay with it but a little impatient. She even gets down on her knees and helps me, then suddenly stops.

“I think you’re not actually supposed to warm your limbs if you’re cold,” she remembers. “You’re just supposed to warm your core, and your limbs can handle themselves.”

“Well, I can’t walk if my feet are going numb,” I reply, in something of a whine.

Lia opens her mouth to respond, but there’s finally another scream, back the way we came.

“Damn it,” says Lia, and she’s back on her feet and rounding the corner before I can say anything. By the time I’m ready to follow her, I hear a faint cry, and a door slamming shut, somewhere up ahead.

Which way should I go?

I sigh. I’m closer to the stairs on this side, anyway.

I stalk the halls, alone, listening for anything more. I am rewarded not by further sounds but by a trail of footprints glistening with tiny bits of snow. I follow it all the way down to the ground floor, and into the hotel restaurant. My heart leaps into my chest when I see the saloon-style doors of the adjoining bar slam shut, seemingly of their own accord.

I mean, I don’t see any lights on in there.

I quietly approach. The one advantage of being in my socks is that I am very stealthy, at least as long as I don’t stub my toes. I reach the saloon doors and peer over. Nothing but darkness, and I am too afraid to call out. I raise my phone flashlight over the top and get jump-scared by my own reflection in the mirror over the bar. Really, this is too much to just wake up to.

I slip through the doors, and look around. Apart from the bar proper, there are booths all along the walls. It is nerve-wracking checking each one, especially because I have no idea what I’m afraid of right now. It hasn’t occurred to me yet that whatever made Yeji (I’m sure it was Yeji) scream might not be something that I want to meet. But I luck out; Yeji is slumped over in one of the far booths.

“Yeji,” I whisper, as I gently shake her, “Yeji, wake up!” She stirs and looks around wildly, and I have to point my phone flashlight at my face to reassure her.

“What happened?” she says groggily, and I have to tell her that I have no idea.

I get around her side, her arm on my shoulder, and I try to help her out of the booth but she’s very weak and wobbly. Since I know how to get back to the lobby from here, I tell her that I’ll be right back, that I need to get Lia, and she seems to understand at first but then grabs me in terror at being left alone again.

“Something’s wrong with Sunmi. I don’t remember anything else, but she was really fucking creepy!”

I try to reassure her. “Let me call out to Lia, okay? Let her know we’re okay?”

Yeji nods, but before I can finish taking in a deep breath she screams at something, scaring the hell out of me and making my ears hurt.

“Yeji, what the fuck?”

“It’s her, it’s her…” she whimpers, and I look towards the door and she’s right, someone is standing there watching us, completely cloaked in darkness, and the _“Lia!”_ I manage to get out sounds more like a strangled cat than anything coherent.

The figure just stands there, staring at us with her unseen eyes. Yeji shrinks back into the far corner of the booth, and I’m about to join her when I hear heavy footsteps approaching. The shadow is banished by Lia’s light, and she finds us cowering, and I’ve never been so happy to see her in my life.

***

We warm up in front of the fire, and I grab my shoes, before we head upstairs and barricade ourselves in our bedroom. We lug up some of the food, too, but we leave anything that needs to be cooked, and not just for convenience. Whatever Sunmi has done, if we take all the food we will definitely be provoking a confrontation. It wouldn’t be difficult for her to shut off the heat and power to our room, and what if she could cut the water supply, too?

“Do you remember anything at all?” asks Lia, as we lay snuggled in bed together. This is for warmth and the comfort of each other’s presence; we’re far from being able to fall asleep at this time.

“I think I nodded off,” said Yeji, “and then I heard a lot of noise from that library, and I went up there and it was trashed, and I followed these crazy sounds into the dark and got lost, and after that everything is a blur until Ryujin found me.”

We lay there quietly for a moment.

“This just doesn’t make sense,” I say, and neither of them disagrees with me.

“What really doesn’t make sense,” adds Lia, “is that it’s only about two o’clock.”

“Two?” says Yeji.

“Yup.” She strokes my back with her fingertips, and I lean into her. Yeji feels this, and leans into me.

God, I wish we were safe here.

I sit up. “Should we really wait here, for her to make the next move? There are three of us, we really ought to find her and make her see reason.” Or something to that effect.

Lia gets up, too. “You’re probably right. We’ll lose our minds in this room long before we starve to death. We have to be able to move freely and safely if we’re going to survive. And it’d be better if Sunmi was working with us instead of against us.”

“You guys,” says Yeji, “where do you think she could even be hiding out? Most of the hotel isn’t being heated. It’s a wonder she hasn’t frozen to death.”

I share a look with Lia. Yeji’s right, it’s not just food that is a survival problem, it’s the everlasting cold. I work out in my head the best possibility, but Lia beats me to it.

“The basement,” she says.

***

We unlatch the chain and the deadbolt, and push away the chair we had pressed against the door. We head directly to the basement, and it is still almost comfortable down there. Staying together of course slows us down, and most of the rooms are these massive things piled with junk and choked with cobwebs. We see no signs of habitation, and when we check the utility controls find that no other parts of the hotel have had their connections opened up. So unless there are more fireplaces, there is nowhere Sunmi could have gone that we are aware of.

“This is just totally nuts,” says Lia, and Yeji and I agree. We debate whether to start a room by room search, but we are getting hungry and will need to eat soon.

“Hey,” says Yeji, “were you at all successful down by the lake?” Our expedition has been entirely pushed from my mind.

“Kind of,” I tell her, and Lia mentions the fishing gear we’d left behind.

“Do you want to go get it with us?” she asks, and Yeji hesitates.

“Isn’t it really chilly out? Plus, maybe leaving Sunmi alone here is a bad idea.”

We debate it for a little while, and I volunteer to go out there by myself. Now that I’ve made the trek already, I’m sure I can pace myself for the hike back. All I need to do is grab any putative fish from our trap, and maybe some more berries or whatnot (if I happen to see them), and come back. Pretty straightforward as far as this disastrous trip has been.

They tell me, “Good luck,” as I bundle up to go out again. I open the front door, and the afternoon sunlight is pleasant on my face. It looks like a tiny bit of snow has melted, and the great amount that’s left glistens spectacularly.

It’s even easier going down the driveway than it was this morning. I reach the road at a brisk pace and follow the path to the shed, and I’m dumbstruck at how different the lake looks. Granted, it’s still mostly frozen, but with the sun out the ice produces a blinding reflection of shimmering gold. I hold my hand up to shield my eyes, and across the far side I see a herd of either deer or antelope or whatever such creatures dwell in these parts. If only I had a gun to hunt them with.

I find Lia’s makeshift fish trap, and the line is taut. A thin layer of ice covers the hole we made, and I can see a nice, fat piece of dinner struggling to get free. I can’t believe this worked so well. I kneel down and break the ice with a stick and pull dinner out. I’ve only just got it free of the hook when the bear attacks.

***

I don’t even hear it approaching, there’s just this sudden musky stink, and a huge pain in my shoulder from it lazily batting me down. I freeze in panic, which turns out to be a great strategy. The thing immediately loses interest in me, snatching my flopping dinner in its mouth and padding off to whatever hell it materialized out of.

I lay there on the frozen ground until I’m shivering. I slowly get up, clutching my shoulder, and I stagger off to the shed. The door is still unlocked, so I get inside and hide. There’s nothing else in here with me.

My shoulder hurts so much. I reach around with my right hand and feel tattered fabric. I pull my hand back and the fingers are covered in blood. I look out the window and see nothing, so I search around for a first aid kit or something. There’s an old one here, in a yellow box. I have to take of my coat, my shirt, even my bra, which now has a broken strap on that side. Even still, I am unable to do anything to treat the wound proper. I simply cannot apply gauze, or make stitches, or put on a band-aid. I also cannot stay here for very long, because I will freeze to death.

I put my shirt and coat back on, and leave my bra rolled up in my pocket. I’m going to carry the first-aid kit back with me, but should I try to find a weapon? I’m in no condition to fight, but if that fucking bear comes back for seconds I won’t be so lucky. I mainly want a weapon so that I can lie to myself, about having a chance.

There are a few tools back where Lia had found the fishing gear. One in particular stands out to me, a kind of hatchet. I grab it, and it feels like I have strength enough to wield it, so I head back to the window, and the coast is still clear. The only thing left to do is step out before I bleed to death.

I close the door behind me, clutching the first aid kit in my left arm and cradling it with the hatchet in my right hand. I have to hold my left arm stiff, if I move it around too much it shoots daggers of pain into my shoulder. I make it to the end of the the short jaunt through the woods, and the brief trek through the meadow, and I start to think I’m going to make it. The cold, while it’s trying to kill me, is also numbing the pain, and it may even be helping with the bleeding.

I cross the road to the bottom of the driveway, turn around to see if anything is following me, and I hear a howl and think, wolves? I don’t see any, and the howl was a long way off, but it would take no time at all for them to catch me. I have to hurry and get through the gate.

The reason so much of the driveway is free of snowdrifts has to do with its topography. Except for right at the top and bottom, it runs through a cut in the slope. One side, where the cut was made, is like a wall or cliff above it. The other side is a steep gradient down, and while you could probably get up it in summer, right now it would be too treacherous. So the advantage of being on the driveway is that you’re unlikely to be outflanked.

I trudge up the hill, the journey familiar to me from this morning, so it doesn’t feel quite so long as it did then. The driveway levels out and I see the gate in front of me, so I look back again and I am astounded at how close the road and the lake seem to be. The weather at this moment is very clear, so the distance of the shed must have been an illusion. Meaning that bear could easily make it up here if it so chose. I glance down at my tracks, and I’ve left little drops of blood here and there. Damn, it’s like an invitation.

I go to the gate and slip through, and it’s while I’m trying shut and latch it that the first wolf shows itself, padding right up and scaring the shit out of me. It stops about a meter from the gate and stares, and for a moment I think it’s going to turn out to be a friendly dog when it growls at me, hackles rising as it bares its teeth. Two more trot up the driveway behind it, and then it throws itself at the gate, and if I had been even a little bit slower the gate would have been pushed wide open and I’d be dead for sure.

The other two fan out from the gate, and more wolves appear down the driveway. They’re probing for weak points. Why they aren’t going after those deer is a mystery to me, until I realize they must think me easier prey, with my slower speed and bloody wound.

I run across the parking lot, past our car and to the front door. Whatever the cold did for my pain, my desperate flight has undone. I muscle through into the lobby with my last bit of strength, scream, _“Help!”_ at the top of my lungs, and collapse on the floor in a heap.


	4. Chapter 4

Yeji cleans my wounds and comforts me while Lia gives me stitches. It hurts, but the cold helps numb the pain. When she’s finished I just lie there in front of the fireplace, convalescing between them, and I remark about how lucky I am I didn’t bleed to death.

“It’s like the Battle of Edgehill,” murmurs Lia.

Lying on my front like this, I can’t turn around to stare at her. But she must know from Yeji’s and my silence that she’s going to have to explain herself.

“Oh, I was reading a book from upstairs. There was an old battle, and because the weather was so cold, many more wounded men survived than usual, because their blood coagulated, and infection couldn’t spread.”

I blink. “Did you read that today?”

“Yeah, I did.”

Another blink. “While I was getting mauled by a bear?”

Her tone of voice changes. “What’s your point?”

I don’t know. I mean, she’s just helped heal me, so why am I getting upset at her? Yeji intervenes before I can dig the hole deeper.

“We didn’t know what else to do, while we were waiting for you to come back. So we cleaned up the library a little bit. Just shoved everything back on the shelves, no particular order. Then we hung out in our room.”

“Until you heard me return.”

“Yes…”

There’s something they’re not telling me, but it’s a bit too difficult to move around freely enough to see the expressions on their faces.

“Did you hear anything else while I was gone?”

This time Yeji doesn’t speak while Lia reluctantly says, “We’re not sure…”

I’m tired, and hungry and thirsty, so I don’t ask any more questions about it. Yeji helps me eat our pitiful fare, then they both help me stand up because I need the bathroom. I have to wear a sling on my left arm, in order to prevent its movement from tearing the stitches in my shoulder. It makes me feel both useless and vulnerable.

“We should head upstairs for the night,” says Lia. “Not much firewood left, and I don’t think we want to spend a lot of time outside getting more if we can make it last.”

They have to carry all our shit, so I slowly totter over to the stairs on my own. I climb slowly, leaning on the railing, and as they pass me I decide to take a rest on the landing halfway up. Here where the bannister wraps around, I have a view both above me, to the lamplight streaming out of our room, and below, where the shadows cast by our dying firelight mingle with that of the faint, waning sun. And I start to panic. What am I hearing? Is it the two of them in our room, moving things around? Or someone downstairs, stalking us?

There’s a gap in the railing. I could peer straight down to the basement if I wanted to, but I can’t. No telling who I’d see staring back up at me. Ditto for looking the other direction. My eyes are glued to the front door, so I jump like a rabbit when Lia passes me.

“Where are you going?” I whine, and I can’t stand the weakness that’s shaking my voice. Lia notices it, too, which is probably why she sounds so concerned when she says, “I’ve got an idea. I’ll be right back.”

Down she goes, but my eyes don’t follow. I can’t quite tell what I’m looking at anymore, my eyes won’t focus. I try to remember how to say Yeji’s name, but it’s like I’ve forgotten how to speak. I start to notice just how much my hands are hurting gripping the bannister when Yeji comes for me anyway.

“Ryujin, I’ve got you. Come on.” I feel her arm around my back, and I let take my hand and push me forward. Step by step, we slowly ascend, and when we enter the hall I resolutely refuse to look left or right into the darkness. Once inside, Yeji leaves me alone in the bathroom, and I stare at my well-lit reflection in the mirror, until the lights flicker and I flinch, because the generator has come on again.

It takes some time, but I start to recognize myself. I concentrate on doing what I need to to prepare for bed and all that other stuff, and when I have finally finished, I feel…ever so slightly better.

I leave the bathroom, and am surprised to see the main door has already been barricaded. I turn the corner and find Lia hard at work on one of our windows, Yeji standing nearby. She comes over and sets me down in bed, and then there is a loud noise as Lia drops one of the shutters over the side. Cold air and the last traces of daylight flood in, and both feel good and bad. Lia soon gets the other shutter off and closes the window, and the room starts to warm up again. They really have the heat going, too. This must now be the only spot in the hotel being heated at all.

They snuggle into bed with me, on either side, and we say goodnight but I know I’m not going to get any sleep. Every time I close my eyes I see that bear, those wolves, or that accursed shadow that I somehow forgot about. Yes, definitely not sleeping now that I remember _that_. After what I guess is half an hour, I hear the generator sputter to a stop, and the lamp we left on as a nightlight shuts off. Lia and Yeji must be awake too because they are aware of it immediately.

“Out of gas,” says Lia.

“Do we need electricity for the heating system?’ asks Yeji.

“Yeah, but there’s a big battery downstairs for that. Nothing but the heating pumps can draw power from it.”

“What if we need to run water?” I ask. Lia pauses.

“I don’t know. So let’s keep that to a minimum.”

Yeji slips out of bed and lights a candle she must have found somewhere in the hotel. It smells wonderful, and helps to relax me. Yeji gets back into bed, and they say goodnight again, and I say something else.

“Kiss me,” I tell them, and their hesitation is anguish. But it’s anguish I can stand, because it ends with them acquiescing. They both peck me on the cheek, tentatively, and I respond by pressing my lips hard against theirs. It’s too awkward for me to get my arms around either of them, but not the reverse. Pressed close together, sharing our body heat, must be exactly what the doctor ordered, because soon I feel so contented that I pass right out.

***

I have nightmares, but I don’t remember any of them, because they keep getting smothered by my feelings towards Lia and Yeji. The one, the tough girl I’ve never been, and the other, the sweetness I can never be. I don’t know how I would describe myself in respect to those two. All I know is that when I’m with them, I feel complete in a way I’ve never known before. And I never want to be parted from them.

It is thus disconcerting when I wake up alone in the dark, someone’s phone blazing brilliantly in my free hand, and I’m staring at myself in a mirror in a location I do not recognize. Perhaps it is one of the suites? A quick glance around seems to confirm this. I’m in a bathroom very different from the one I just previously used, one with an ornate, almost antique bathtub. I stare at it, expecting the worst, but there’s nothing there. Looking behind me, I find the door, and I open it.

And I scream.

The bathroom opens onto the suite’s bedroom. Lying in bed is a twisted figure, all wrapped up in blankets. Instantly I can see that it is our missing Sunmi, and from the crimson stains overflowing the fabric, it is obvious she didn’t freeze to death.

I have to skirt the bed to get out, there’s no other way. I turn the corner and pass through the sitting room and dining room. The door’s ahead of me, somebody bolted it shut (possibly me?) but I open it and escape.

Now I’m in a darkened hallway, like so many others in this place. I try to check the time on the phone, but it’s completely screwed up. It’s also not mine, so there’s nothing I can do to fix it. Looking at the room numbers, I must be on the third floor, but where? I never memorized what room numbers are in which wing, so I don’t have a clue. I can only choose one of two directions to go in, so I go right.

It’s the wrong decision, but I pay nothing for it. The hall ends in a handful of more rooms, so I turn around and go back. I pass the open door I’ve just left behind, and I can hear someone moving in there. Someone creakily getting out of bed, who maybe hasn’t moved in several days and wants to get caught up with everything I’ve been doing in the mean time…

I run, heedless. I can’t tell if I’m being chased, and more than once I nearly smash into the wall, because they keep looming out of the gloom so suddenly. But it’s not a far distance to travel, especially if you’re in a hurry, and I reach the stairs in the middle of the hotel and slow down to descend. I see the light from the electric lamps before I see the door, and then it is before me, wide open. I set foot into the hallway, and the sunlight blazing in through the window is blinding yet heartening.

And no one is home.

“Yeji? Lia?”

I close the door behind me, even though I’m not sure I didn’t hallucinate Sunmi being dead and getting up again, and bolt it. I look at the bed, and it is unmade, but there is no sign of a struggle. Perhaps they went off sleepwalking like I apparently did.

Well, I’m alone now. Hopefully they’ll return soon, and if not, hopefully I’ll work up the nerve to find them.

The bright window feels very inviting. I walk over to it, and sit myself down in the sill. The view of the mountains surrounding me is incredible, as is the lake in the valley far below. Then I see something in the foreground that makes my blood run cold.

Our car is gone. _Gone_. There’s a patch of asphalt less-covered in snow, where it once was. And tire tracks lead from there to the gate and down the driveway beyond, but _they left the gate open_. They left me, and they left the gate _wide_ open!

And then I see what look to be the tracks of several wild animals at least, and as I follow their paths towards the hotel I realize that they’ve been circling it, like they were looking for weaknesses, like they were trying to find a way in.


End file.
